Prevailing Wind
by Sainalone
Summary: The days of him living and training among the ranks of the Farstriders have long been forgotten, yet they prevail all because of a Windrunner, the former ranger-general whose past also lingers because of him.
1. Chapter 1

Warcraft and Heroes of the Storm belong to Blizzard. I do not own them.

* * *

Nathanos was training the new recruits when Sylvanas summoned him. He was told to meet her at the Orb of Translocation linking Undercity and Silvermoon. Upon arriving, Nathanos saw her standing alone, her back facing him.

"My champion," Sylvanas said. "How do you fare today?"

"Very well my queen," replied Nathanos. "For which reasons have you summoned me?"

Sylvanas turned around to face him, the sound of her footsteps echoing through the air. For a moment the two simply looked at each other. No words, no movement, just silence.

Unlike most of the time, her face was softened and her gaze had lost its sharp edge. Nathanos knew something was amiss with his queen every time she dropped her hardened façade, an action she would do in private of course. He assumed it was her failure in Stormheim which affected her this time, but he could be wrong.

"Do you regret it?"

Nathanos wasn't sure he had heard her correctly, mainly due to the suddenness of the question and how seemingly it was cut off. The ambiguity in it made him frown internally. "Pardon, Dark Lady?"

"Your cousin, do you regret doing it?"

The subject of his cousin was the last thing he had expected to hear from his queen. It struck him unexpectedly as if his heart was pierced by one of his own arrows. He had tried to push down his feelings and what was left of his humanity down countless times, yet they somehow always managed to resurface. "Yes, I do regret the choice I made."

"I apologize then for suggesting it in the first place."

Nathanos noticed Sylvanas' gaze on him. One of the emotions in it was sympathy, something he knew the Sylvanas standing in front of him wouldn't show or even acknowledge its existence—except for the old Sylvanas, the ranger-general of Quel'Thalas whose grace and prowess in archery had captivated him dearly in his past life. Like the latter, the old Nathanos Marris would never sacrifice his own cousin's life for vanity. "Time changes people," he said. "Death changed us."

"But some refuse to change."

Nathanos watched as his queen approached him, her movement entrancing him with each of her steps. She stopped when they were an arm's length apart from each other.

"Even if they are to change," Sylvanas said, locking her glowing red orbs with his. "Or if they are to fake the changes."

"Why?" asked Nathanos, his eyes searching hers for answers. "Why won't they change?"

Sylvanas turned around and walked back to the center of the room. "They have someone whose existence prevents them from changing," she said. "Someone whose presence alone is enough to bring them back had they gone astray."

Nathanos stared at his queen, his mind processing her words. He sensed a connection between her and what she had said, and then paired it with how the Sylvanas in front of him had been acting. A sudden alarm shot through his body when something clicked in his mind. He felt as if the person in front of him was not his queen, not a cunning and ruthless ruler of the Horde. Rather, it was someone else—someone close that he knew and once had been familiar with.

"Who are you?"

"I believe you know the answer to that question." She let him ponder as she approached the Orb of Translocation. "Now, spare me the details and follow me," Sylvanas said to him. "And try to attract as least attention as possible." She activated the orb before being teleported away in seconds.

Her abrupt parting shook him from his thoughts. He had partly been listening when she told him to follow her. Knowing she was waiting on the other side, Nathanos walked up to the orb and activated it.

 _Sylvanas?_


	2. Chapter 2

Most of the Sunfury Spire's residents had already retired for the night by the time the two rangers materialized in the Inner Sanctum. Aside from Royal Guards situated along the hallways, no one was to be found on the ground floor. Nathanos followed behind his queen—no, not his queen—closely as they made their way to the building's entrance.

"Keep your profile low and be swift." Sylvanas shifted into long strides when they reached the streets, making Nathanos increase his pace to keep up with her.

The trip through the city was uneventful. Other than getting recognized and being pointed at a few times, nothing happened to the pair as they moved under the shadows. It was only after they had exited the city's gate that they slowed down to a stroll.

"Where are we going, Dark Lady?" Nathanos asked, still obliged to using titles despite it was not Sylvanas, the leader of the Forsaken and the Warchief of the Horde, he was talking to. He pulled his hood down, letting the night breeze graze his newly-constructed face.

"Just wait and see it yourself," Sylvanas replied without glancing back at the ranger behind her while continuing to move forward.

The vagueness and shortness of her response only served to fuel his curiosity and anxiety which were growing with each step he took. He was able to read her on occasions given how long he had been with her, both in life and in death, but what they were doing at the moment was on another level of mystery.

Walking along the road to the west, they reached a small camp of blood elves. Nathanos waited as Sylvanas went to the camp's flightmaster and came back with a pair of riding dragonhawks. She brought one to him, and they both climbed onto their mounts' reins. He nodded at her, signaling he was ready. Not before long, the two took off into the sky.

Eversong Woods at night was a sight to behold, especially when seen from above while on a flying transport. Where a street light lay under the canopy, an individual firefly could be seen—its flapping wings being the warm golden leaves which swayed as the night breathed; its flickers being the light that escaped through the ever-weaving foliage. Coupled with a blanket of stars sparkling among the darkened azure, the woods radiated beauty, an attribute which could allure one through emotion.

For Nathanos, however, beauty meant nothing. In undeath, positive emotions were dampened to the point they simply ceased to exist. Be it appreciation, happiness, or love, such terms had long become obsolete to the Forsaken. Only negative thoughts and bitterness towards life were harbored and were what remained in their non-beating hearts. That being said, this wasn't always the case; he couldn't deny the feeling of regret which had resurfaced after the ritual involving a Val'kyr and his cousin.

After a few hours of flying, with occasional stops near a stream or a pond for the dragonhawks to drink and rest, they arrived at Windrunner Spire in the Ghostlands. Landing a safe distance away from the Scourge-infested area, Nathanos readied his bow and arrows as Sylvanas went up to their mounts. He was on the lookout for possible threat when both of the dragonhawks flew off all of a sudden.

"Do not worry, I just sent them back to Tranquillien," Sylvanas said when he turned around in alarm. Nathanos could see the reassurance in her gaze, and while he knew he could trust her actions—as he always had—he couldn't help the unsettling feeling that was starting to manifest inside of him.

Dispatching cultists and hostile banshees in their path, the pair made their way into the main building. They went out the back exit and descended the ramp leading to the two lesser structures. Nathanos saw Sylvanas make a turn, and after some more Scourge-killing, found her stopping at the closed entrance of a smaller spire. She murmured an incantation and the door slid open by itself. Seeing her enter the long-abandoned building, Nathanos followed suit.

The whole room was covered in dust. From the ceiling to the staircases, everything was enveloped in a layer of grey which permeated all floors. Compared with the dilapidated main spire, this one, however, seemed to have remained untouched after all these years. No broken furniture or anything that was out of place. It appeared as if the place had been disconnected from the outside world completely—a forgotten piece of the past, lost and frozen in time.

If his heart had beat still, it would have palpitated by this point. Considering the whole situation, with Sylvanas leading them here without others' knowledge, Nathanos knew _something_ was going to happen. He felt as though she, being a cunning person herself, had planned this from the start and had known all along what lay ahead of them.

No. No, she couldn't be. It would just be another occasion on which she vented her frustrations while he listened, and after she finished they would hearth back to the capital. Nothing interesting would happen. Shaking the thoughts away, Nathanos went up the winding steps after Sylvanas, whose gauntleted hand was gliding along the dust-lined handrail. Ascending few more floors, they reached the topmost room.

Two windows, one overlooking the woods and the other the ocean, were across from each other on the round chamber wall. Hung next to the staircase was a rope ladder leading to the rooftop's trapdoor. While the room itself looked ordinary, the way in which it was decorated was not. Sparse but opulent looking—to Nathanos, the style felt familiar. It was as if he had seen it somewhere before.

"This was once my room," Sylvanas said, walking towards a drawer closet and brushing away the dust covering the wooden surface. "In another lifetime, this place held fond memories of the Windrunners." She went over to the nightstand next to a circular high elven bed. On top of it was a framed painting of the Windrunner family. Sparing the picture a melancholic look, she reached over with one hand and picked it up.

"The spire once rang with laughter, and the air was filled with joy which emanated from the three sisters and their younger brother. Now only death remains." Sylvanas set the family portrait back on the bedside cabinet. "Everything went away."

Nathanos listened silently as the former ranger-general reminisce about how the spire used to be like. He could hear something inside him telling him to go and comfort her, but his lower body wouldn't move.

"But then something happened."

Nathanos watched as Sylvanas approached the oval person-sized mirror next to the drawer closet on the other side of the room. Upon looking more closely at the mirror, he noticed some details that were amiss. The layer of dust covering the glass seemed to be thinner than that which covered the rest of the room, hinting at how the object had been disturbed at least once since the spire had been locked away. And after looking at the reflection in the mirror long enough, Nathanos felt something was off. It was as if this mirror wasn't a mirror at all, but something else disguising as one.

Stopping in front of the mirror, Sylvanas raised a hand and brought it forward. The moment her fingers brushed against the glass, they went right through—or into—the surface instead. The glass rippled around her fingers like a pool of water, the reflective material turning liquid magically. Closing her eyes, Sylvanas walked forward, her boots stepping over the mirror's bottom edge as she entered the liquefied glass. In a matter of seconds, she was gone.

Nathanos' eyes widened as Sylvanas disappeared into the mirror. He stood there, frozen and perplexed as to what had just transpired. Looking at the mirror Sylvanas had gone into, he saw how the glass had transformed into a swirling pool of some sort of magic. It resembled a portal closely enough.

 _"Just wait and see it yourself."_ Sylvanas' words from earlier in the night came back to him. He didn't know whether or not this was what she wanted him to witness, or perhaps what lay behind the shimmering veil of magic. While this intrigued Nathanos, he knew Sylvanas was waiting for him on the other side, just like when she had departed from the Ruins of Lordaeron using the Orb of Translocation.

No. Not only that. She had also been waiting for him in undeath, under the newly established faction of the Forsaken, when he was found wandering aimlessly as a mindless servant of the Scourge. No matter where or how far behind he was, Sylvanas would be waiting for him. Always.

Steeling himself for one last time, Nathanos stepped forward and entered the mirror.


End file.
